Attacking evil 3/12/3012

Well last night we had the most outragous pillow fight the world has ever know!! WE had a zone sleep over in our house!! Our house is big its two stories!! So we had 4 companionships over to make brownies and cookies and ice cream and all the goodies it was super fun! But with all the sugar we had to get rid of it all and we just let it all out in a hard core pillow fight!! I didnt know that a pillow fight could be so deathly haha!! We had pillows flyin everywhere! It was awesome!1 Loved it! We had a pillow that got demolished it was like a sandlot ball as a pillow style!! Wowo!! WE played hard core!! Ya i know a pillowfight sounds like a girlythingy to do but, wow! We played with latinos and they know how to play haha!! It was a good bounding moment! I love it that we are all men in our Zone!! We would pound the heck out of each other with pillows and then after we would be like! Wow! THat was a good hit Elder!! Congrats haha! Good group of Elders! Every now and then we need to release it out!! haha!

Our area is growing!! YESS!!! Elder Perez and I are working on our time mangegment!!! I love being assistant but i dont like the fact that we are never in the area to work but we are doing better in our planning and we are seeing the blessings!! wow! We have some excellent investigators! We met some awesome people!! The thing is is that we dont contact much in our area but i like to teach when we travel in buses or taxis to not feel like a loser going on a ride!! But the Lord has blessed us with 3 new families that are excellent! Wow!! And they contacted us while we were in the street!! I loved it!! On thursday we were walking and a lady contacted us! (people trust alot in us sometimes too much) So we were walkin and she asked if we were missionaries!! And she told us her life story even to the point of telling us that she just got out of a relationship and that she was gonna be a christan missionary but she went out with her boyfriend and now she finished with him and she doens t know if shes pregnant!! Then she asked us, what should i do!! My comp and i were like well, PMG says nothing about this question from the soul. But my wise comp said! Be of good cheer, everything will turn out ok!! Then she was super happy and was so glad to talk to us!! So the Lord blesses us when we really try to do His work!! I am not the perfect missionary, but iwant to be and try!! and the Lord blesses us for a work and he gives us awesome experiences!!

 I love my comp! Elder Perez is my best friend! WE have great times everyday! WE like to study the doctrine and we love to study and teach! its great!! We are working on changing lives, one person at a time! Sometimes it gets overwhelming but we just have to remind ourselves one person at a time!! Day by day! The Lord protects us! Sometimes He protects us too much i feel!! The Colombian life is way differnt from mine!! It makes me think alot of why me, why am i so blessed with my life!! I have never really sufferen from a trauma of something, lost someone close to me, never been stabbed or shot or nothing like that!! Everyone here, has a story, has a wound!! I love teaching with the scripture in Jacob 2:8 The gosple heal the wounded soul! The Lord has blessed us with teaching a Jewish brother!! Wow!! What a great privilege God has given us!! Alejandro(The Jew) doesnt believe that Jesus is our Savior, what a great opportunity that we have to testify, he doesnt know why there needs to be a Christ or why it was Jesus and that the Messiah already came!! I love it!! I dont know much about Jewish doctrine, just the basics, my comp knows alot!! So he helps me a lot and we love teaching him!! He is a great friend of mine!! We only have taught him 2 times! and its as if we have been friends since birth! The great thing about Alejandro is that he wants to believe in a Christ but doesnt know how!! When he talks to me, he is super realistic, he is sincere!! He talks to be really as a brother!! and i love the guy as a brother!! THats what i love about being a missionary!! you become friends with everyone!! Your family grows so much! I am loving dear friends!! Love ya all a ton!! Elder Hammer I will send pics tommorow!! I cnat send from this como but i am i nthe office tommorow!!

we make people work 3/5/2012

Well this week was a pretty fun week!! The thing about being assistant is that we work a lot and travel alot, we eat super good, but we dont sleep and we dont have time in our area so we have to work hard in the few days in our area if we want to baptize anyone!! SO this week we went to a little pueblito called Villavicencio!! IT was super awesome!! ITs a little smaller town of aout 300 000 habitantes!! its a small big town!! We did some divisions and then we are doing some trianing with the mission so we travel for atleast 2 days every week!! We were in Villao for 4 days this week! On wednesday we had to do a training in the Cold lands!!! on Tuesday we had Council of leaders!! with Tierra Fria! We left for Villao Wednesday and we did divisions the whole week with the elders down there!! It was fun!! ITs a different feeling down there! We sweat alot and all! But its all good! But i dont like workin with the elders when they cant even keep the basic rules! We can not go into houses with women alone!! It's like presidents number one rule!! And they all tried to do it!! I was like Elders why are we tryin to teach women alone!!! AHHH!! WOMEN ARE DANGEROUS IN THE MISSION!!! haha!! I am not one to correct people!! I dont know how to do it still!! I cant be too hard on them nor too soft!! But we had a good training session!

Thanks Pops!! I got your links and all! Keep sending me good ideas to do trainin sessions! Every week I have to give at least one capacitation!!! I was able to use alot from your email Pops!! This week we wil be in an area Tunnjuelito!! haha!! Tunjuelito is a super ugly area!! Its a whole some of PAtio Bonito haha!! But i love those areas!! Today for Pday we went to a little pueblo! IT was super cool! IT was like an hour bus ride out of Bogota!! ITs the most calm place i have ever been in my life!! Probably a city of 3000 people!! But nobody was in the street!! It has a big Laguna there so we went and messed around on the shore and all! and me and my homies we all took some model misionary pics haha!! Check em out baby!! IT was suepr fun! WE had a blast!! We just walked around this little town! wasnt much to do but it was just fun to enjoy the day in a chill enviroment! I love my comp! he is the best!! WE always area talking and always messing around but yet workin! We love the mission!! Its great to have a comp that loves the mission!! We have a great time leading the missionaries!! Sometimes its get a bit annoying that everyone always calls us!! Like my phone rings like 5 tims an hour! missionaries with questions, problems or something!! ITs funny though! So I have the best comp! We just keep each other relaxed!! WE try to handle eveything calmly! haha! THis week some stuff wnet down in the mission!! haha!! WE are doing things that dont happen in other missions i think!! haha! THere are things that only happen in Colombia!! haha!! But we keep loving it!!

 Dear friends and family love ya all a ton!! keep up the good work! I am loving it in Colombia!! Doing the work! Whenever my comp and i get tired or a bit discourage we always just tell each other!! hey one more mile wont hurt!! So we just get back up, go contact go teach and we do work! YA!! WE hope to have 2 baptisms this month!! We will get them wet!! Proud of everyone and everything that is good! I am excited to have 2 new neices/ nephews or maybe a third one soon!! Tight that JAys gettin a house! Congrats!! Keep going strong dear parents of mine!! I teach alot about true love with the example of Mom and DAds mariage and Franky awesome with your schooling news! Atta boy!! Tookies!! Keep being tookies! nad bein my sister!! Love ya tons Elder Hammer

sweet people doing the Lord's work 2/27/2012

WOW!! The Lord loves to bless us for our work!! I love my Savior soo much!! We are kicking some tail in Bochica!! In our area its pretty dead, but we are workin on changin that around!! I love it!! My comp and I had a good plannin session last week and i told him that i came here to do the Lords will and to baptize the world and just because we are AP doesnt mean a thing, we still are here to baptize, so we organized ourselves, so we can get some work done. I dont like to be in the offices too much, the less the better!!! So we were able to work in our area 4 days this week!! YESS!! We contacted people we taught we did it all!! YES!! It is super hard to talk to the people here, they aint as warm as in the southern parts, its a bit harder to contact people, but the people that listen, legitametly listen and understand us a lot better!! They are better educated and we can talk a bit more a bout doctrine and the people have a real interest that listen to us!! So wednesday in the night time we were walkin to an appointment and some guy crossed the street to talk to us while we were walkin(In this part of town, its ok, it aint dangerous at first i was like crud he s gonna rob us by no!! YEA!! haha) He was like i have a friend who wants to kill himself, what will happen to him after death, what will God do to him!! he caught me a bit off guard but we taught him in the street for a bit and then we was like come on over to my house tomorrow, so we gladly did! He loved the plan of salvation!! IT was great!! God blessed us to meet him. He is called Freddy!! Then we had an appointment on Sunday after church with a 16 year old girl. We were waiting for her to come. She has to have the appointments in the chapel cuz her dad aint a fan of other churchesWe were waiting for her to come and it started to poor down in rain for like 1/2 an hour and then she comes around the corner all drenched!! I was like woow, soo sorry you got super drenched but she was so happy, she was like, theres no price you can put on getting to know Christ!!! I was like wow what a killer response!! She read the book of Mormon like 10 chapters more that we gave her to read!! AWESOME!! She is the best person i have ever met!! Wow!! Second lesson and is spectacular!!

I love teachin the people here!! Then we met another guy this week who is jewish!! He is super tight!! He was a reference from a member!! Wow!! What a stud!! Love the guy to death!! He came to shurch and was like, i am ready for a change, i can i let God work in me!! Wow he was great! He is super friendly!! I love the guy! When i present myself I say, Qhubo, yo me llamo Elder Hammer y yo vengo de Cali!! and they're like huh!! What oh ok, then I say no de California!! haha! They love it!! So the Ward calls me the Caleño! haha!! SO they all joke with me, i like friendly people!!

 I almost cried of the kindness of this sister in the Ward!! My time in the mission is starting to show and my shirts are stained and i dont think i have a pair of pants that havent ripped yet haha!! So a sister offered to fix my paints for me!! I was so greatful, she s this olderly lady like 75 or something but just a sweety!! Sister Garzon and she fixed 5 pairs of paints, i was expecting to pay her but she did it for free!! WOW!! I love her, what a great act of service!! She did and excelent job on fixing my pants I am so greatful for fixin my paints!! I was meanin to get the fixed but i got changed here and was waiting for my new Credit card to come in to pay for it all, but this kinds lady recognized an Elder in need and took the opportunity to serve!! I am so greatful to her!! So this week we are going to a pueblo called Villao so i am gonna get her a souvenir to show her my graditude!! Great lady! I love it here!! Loving the mission, loving my comp to death!! just a boat load of love here!!

My comp is my best friend! We hate goin to sleep cuz we would love to just stay up talking!! we tlak all day long about randomness or about doctorine alot!! and night come too fast and then the day even faster!! But my comp is a poet! He writes poems so we love tlaking poetry and stuff!! So i play with him a lot we always pull little pranks on each other!! HE wrote a poem called beadsheets of mud!! haha!! Its a weird poem but he won some poetry competion and has a poem website and is a few poetry books!! So i decided to write a poem called sabanas sucias haha!! and i wrote it in whiteboard marker in his bedsheets!! so at night he got in bed and was like what is written in my bed!! haha!! And read the poem and was like wow!! THis is genius!! a poem written in my bed!!! How great!! haha!! We always write eachother poems around the house about random stuff just to get a laugh out of it!! Like our house is huge and we bothhave our own showers, so in my bathroom mirror he wrote me a poem called the reflectin mirror!! haha! Great kid!! SO we are enjoying our companionship, we mess around, we talk doctorine we are being moved throught the spirit!!

 Loving the mission!1 Just loving it here!! This week we studied Captain moroni!! WOW! What a man he is!! When he write the card to pahoran!! Wow!! Straight and direct!! His loyalty is the God!! Then what a killer reaponse of Pahoran responding to Moroni tellin him about the uprising of the people in the city and says how he wasnt mad at him and is greatful that he had enough passion to get in his grill about everything and how moroni was really in the cause of liberty for God!! Loved it!! Saturday president called us and told us we have to to a capicitaion on Wednesday for the wholew mission!! I am stoked!! WE are capacitating about the doctorine of obediencse!! What a great topic!! We have studying this out its gonna be a great training session! We are talkin about the agency in obedience why we obey, for what reasons!! Everythin1! its gonna be great!! Then on wednesday after the conference we are traveling to Villao!! and we get be ack Saturday night! Its gonna be fun! Its gonna be a swell week!! Love ya all a ton! Stay strong in the Gosple dear friends!1 Elder Hammer P.S tommorow while im in the office i will send pics!!

my comp is awesome! 2/20/2102

I am with my comp Elder Perez. He's from Bolivia!! I love being his comp! We have a blast!! I didnt know how stressfull it is to be AP but my comp is awesome!! We both are easy going hard workers!! We both love to joke around and help lift the burdens of the other missionaries!!! Its great!! We made a slogan that we want to show the other missionaries that being a missionary is fun! Just smile! my comp told me that his mom tells him that the secret to happiness is to be grateful. If you were always grateful you would always be happy!! So we try to live by this principle!! Its super fun!! WE get along just swell!! i love Elder Perez!!! Its fun to have a comp like him who understands the doctrine and likes to explore it, really explore it!! We walk and talk and we study the doctorine as we walk, we play fun games when we have to travel we play a fun scripture chase game!! right now we are in a trio!! Elder Perez, Elder Hernandez and I! I am replacing Elder Hernandez and he is with us at times!! So someone picks a topic and the other has to find a scripture that deals with that topic the fastest!! It helps alot to be able to teach a principle in a lesson to be able to find a scripture fast!! Sometimes someone will pick just a a word or a name and you have to find the word in a scripture! I love the scriptures!! They are the best!!

We put a baptismal date this week!! I LOVE TEACHING THE GOSPEL!! ITs great!! We just teach every where! It's the best to be able to teach the gospel!! Its the worst when people dont let you testify to them!! In this area its a bit more dificult to work, they got more money!! Like there are cars and people have iphones and all!! Its a safe area!! Thats what bugs me the most!!! I miss my gangster friends in my other areas haha!! I like teachin to the humble!! The contacts here are quick and you got ta talk to them quick which is my weak point!! When i speak fast no one onderstands my spanish so it kills me!!

 My comp! Elder Perez is a poet!! So he is trying to teach me to speak more poetic and helps me a lot with my spanish!! Its great!! I love it!! He is soo cool because its a normal thing for us to be just walking and we will bear testimony to another!! ITs great, it really helps to teach with the spirit to just bear testimony as we go walkin!! Elder Hernandez is goin home on Thursday. He is gonna study at BYU in some english class in April!! So i have been helpin him with his English haha!! I teach him the essentials, pick up lines haha!! SO every night i teach him a knew pick up line so he can flirt with the ladies and all at BYU!! He wants to get married fast, i told him to get a gringa! haha! He is an excellent missionary!! He has been my role model in the mission!! he was my second ZL and now we are companions its great!! I love Elder Hernandez!! The other day i was studyin at my desk ad Elder Hernandez comes up and say ow wow!! you shot me with your eyes, ya ya, your eyes are like the ocean and more pretty than the stars!! haha!! I busted up dying of laughter!1 I was like yes, that is the best pick up line i have ever heard!! He s gonna do great at BYU haha!! Life is well!! We put a baptismal date yesterday!! We should have a baptismal in March!! It will be the first baptism in Bochica for almost a year!!! We'll see how we get this buddy in the water!! Love ya all a ton!! Keep up the good work!! Love ya all a ton, Elder Hammer

week 1 as AP 2/14/2012

This week was super hardcore! I stay super busy and i dont sleep a wink!! AHHH! I would love to sleep sometime but it looks like the Lord has other plans for me!! It was so fun this week. I was basically helping all of the new missionaries get settled in in their areas and everything!! I love the missionaries!! They are all so cool! I love serving them, I just dont like it how all of the errands we do are always so late!! So on monday i went and picked up the missionaries from the Airport!! I loved watching them. There's a glass door that you wait at to pick up the people from the airport and you see them go through customs and all of immigration and get their luggage and all so i saw them all lost and confused. It was great. I remember my first days in Colombia as if it were yesterday!! So anyways theres like a big mob of people always waiting outside the door waiting for people holding up signs of the chauffeur and all!! so i held up my missionary nametag so the missionaries could recognize us so we could pick em up and all! So one of the missionaries saw my nametag and was like your Elder hammer, we know you! I was like, awesome, i got no idea who you but i guess i am famous!! and all of the new Gringos from the MTC knew me haha!! They were like we met your girlfriend in the MTC. I didnt know i had a girlfriend but ok!! It was Janet haha!! I started bustin up laughin cuz i havent heard from her in a while but on Monday i got a letter from her and all and my comp and i were talkin about her right before we picked up the new missionaries. I was reading the letter on the way to the airport in the taxi!! haha!! But the gringos are so cool!! I had a great time with them this week!! They got in on Monday night like at 11:30. We didnt get back to the hotel of the temple til like 1 almost. We had to wake up at 6 on Tuesday then I gave them the welcoming to the mission and all and we got all of their i.d. cards and went to a temple session in the night time. I had to do an errand after that and didnt get to bed till 12 on tuesday. Wednesday we woke up and we got on a bus and went to Giraldolt. I got the news all situated in their areas there and then we went to Ibague. We were in the bus for hours on Wednesday and didnt get to sleep till 1 again.

I went and did division with the zone leaders in the hot lands this week!! I finally got out of Bogota!!! I love the hottlands!! It's so different from Bogota!! Its all green with mountains and a lot of farms and jungle!! I love it!!! Its hot!! i didnt have to put on a sweater or nothin!! It was super cool!! The people there have more confidence with one another so its easier to go tractin and all. I met a lot of people this week!! i loved it!! Then last night we got back to Bogota at like 1 again!! so we didnt sleep to much this week and we are all exhausted!!! I couldnt write yesterday cuz we were traveling most of the day, so i will be writing tuesday or Mondays from now on, depends how everything goes in the week!! we dont get to teach all that much!! I loved gettin to travel this week!! But i still have not taught one lesson in my new area!! It drives me nuts!! I want to baptize people but if i aint in my area, i aint gonna get baptizing!!! we always contact the taxi driver or someone and the bus and try to teach them there and get their dats to pass on the reference but for us in our area!! I got no idea what we're doing!! I hope that this week will be a bit calmer!! But i am loving the mission!! It is the best!! I am learning so much!! More than anything, i am learnin about really who is God!! Who is my Savior!! Thats what i love!! I love learnin and betterin my relation with Him!! Its the best!! I love ya all ton, sorry, i gotta start doing some forms and emails and all of the lovely office work!! Love Elder Hammer